


The Phantasm

by greygerbil



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 18:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10541742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Chirrut's new boyfriend Baze seems to be untraceable, so much so that his friends begin to wonder if he actually exists.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ParamedicMegan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParamedicMegan/gifts).



“Who is this guy?”

“What guy?” Jyn asked. She gave Cassian’s shoulder a shove so that he would make space for her on the bench before she placed her coffee down on the table. She was joining Bodhi, Cassian and Chirrut in this hole-in-the-wall café. Like most twenty-one year olds, she hadn’t thought she’d ever enjoy spending free time with her Religion 101 professor, but Chirrut was different. Sure, he was fifteen years older than Jyn herself, but seemed younger – not because he tried, but because his personality didn’t fit a twenty year old or a forty year old or a sixty year old, but existed in its own timeless bubble of weirdness. Also, when she’d gotten in trouble with a professor and the university management for a blistering anti-government rant she’d handed in as her final Contemporary Politics essay, Chirrut had been the one to speak up in her favour. If it hadn’t been for him, she was pretty sure she’d have been expelled in her second semester. No wonder they’d become friends.

“Chirrut says he has a new boyfriend,” Cassian informed her.

Chirrut smiled like an oracle, stirring chunks of rock sugar into his tea.

“Where’d you meet?” Jyn asked.

“He volunteers at the youth centre where I teach zama-shiwo. You know the girl who used to help me with the evening classes just had her baby? He said he would keep an eye on the kids in her stead.”

Jyn remembered Chirrut saying it was better to have two adults there during the lesson. The youth centre was supposed to help kids who had a difficult time at home and they could get pretty rowdy when in a heap and fighting, especially when they thought it was just a blind man watching them.

“How’d he know you needed help with that?” she asked.

“It was just a coincidence. He’s actually going to help out around the house, too. He heard from a colleague whose children come to our youth centre that something is always breaking and he’s supposedly good at fixing things. He also started supervising the football group one night a week and walks some of them home. A few parents were worried about them going on their own, now that it gets dark earlier.”

“Sounds like a real do-gooder,” Cassian noted.

“Yes,” Chirrut said, sipping his tea. “You wouldn’t guess immediately. It takes a while to really get to know him, but it is well worth it.”

“Do you have a picture?” Bodhi asked.

Chirrut chuckled. “What would _I_ need a picture for?”

“They didn’t add him to the youth centre’s volunteers page yet,” Cassian said. He’d already pulled out his phone to check. Jyn had to smile at that; he’d always been good at getting information quickly.

“No, they won’t. He says he doesn’t like having his name fly around the internet,” Chirrut answered.

“Seems like there’s no way to get to know him but to meet him,” Jyn noted. “We should drop by the centre sometime.”

“You should. You would like him.”

-

“Didn’t you say he’d be around today?” Kay asked, as he sat down on the old, sagging sofa. Against his will, he was just a little interested in Chirrut’s mystery friend, but he was after all an adult man and found it silly to come to visit him twice for it. This time, he’d already sort of pretended to be dragged along by Cassian and if he did that again, Cassian would call him out on it.

“I thought he would be, but he headed home earlier tonight. Something about work, I was told – I didn’t run into him,” Chirrut said.

“He couldn’t give you a call?” Cassian asked.

“He’s been having trouble changing the contract on his phone. He’s only just moved here.”

Shrugging, Chirrut felt around for his bag, his hand meeting it where it sat on the table between half-finished, decidedly crumpled-looking paper flowers some children must have committed.

“Are you absolutely _sure_ this guy exists?” Kay asked, making Cassian chuckle briefly.

“Reasonably sure, Kaytoo,” Chirrut said, raising his brows.

“You have to admit he is elusive,” Cassian said, playing into his friend.

“I think I need to ask him to take a photo of himself next time we meet,” Chirrut said impatiently.

“Print it out and make him sign it,” Kay suggested.

Before Chirrut left the room before them, he gave Kay’s head a gentle whack with his stick.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he said, with a smile.

-

“He couldn’t figure out the camera on your phone?”

Bodhi stared at Chirrut in disbelief.

“That’s what he said,” Chirrut said, slightly defensive. He speared the last piece of mushroom on his fork.

“It’s not really building a service droid from scratch, you know?” Jyn said.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t know how to help him. This might be shocking to hear for a twenty-one year old, but I went blind before the invention of cameras in phones and I hardly have a reason to learn about them now,” Chirrut told Jyn, who just grinned at him.

“I’m telling you, you’re imagining this guy,” Kay said. “No trace of his existence can be found. Maybe one of your students is smoking too much weed in the back row of the auditorium.”

“I do have this from him.”

Chirrut reached down the front of his shirt and pulled out a necklace with a golden pendant. It was the bird that was now on the flag of Jedha City, the symbol of the resistance that had had its main quarters here in the civil war a few hundred years ago and held out against the Empire until the entire city was razed to the ground and had to be build up again on top of the rubble. 

“Not signed,” Kay said, turning back to his plate, and Bodhi sent him a brief look of exasperated amusement.

“I see you held him your lectures, too,” Cassian pointed out.

They all knew the resistance’s story well because Chirrut had told it in class half a dozen times at least, to contextualise the history of the Guardians of the Whills and probably also because he just enjoyed it, giving it a lot of flourishes and asides that were probably not strictly necessary.

“No need. He’s quite knowledgeable about that time period, too, although he’s not a believer in the Force anymore.” Chirrut reached into his jeans pocket, which was buzzing. “I have to take that. A colleague wanted to talk about a thesis we co-supervise.”

When Chirrut had closed the balcony door behind him, Bodhi glanced at Kay across the table.

“You don’t really think he made up a boyfriend, do you?”

“He’s almost forty, not fourteen,” Kay muttered. “I should hope not.”

“After that disaster with Saw, I could understand if he exaggerated a little about him, though, maybe even to himself. He does sound a bit too good to be true,” Cassian added.

“All of this is why I don’t bother with dating,” Kay announced.

“I’m sure _that’s_ why,” Cassian snorted.

-

“Is Chirrut’s boyfriend here?” Jyn asked, as she pulled off her scarf and threw it on the pile on Cassian’s bed, which was tonight’s excuse for a checkroom.

“Is Santa Claus here?” Cassian asked, loud enough that Chirrut, passing by towards the kitchen, would be able to hear them. Chirrut’s indivisible partner had become a bit of a running gag between them at that point. He still hadn’t sorted his phone service out, he didn’t like social media, and of course, according to Chirrut, he wouldn’t be able to make it to Cassian’s small house party tonight.

“He doesn’t really like being stuck with too many strangers at once. Especially since he knows he’d be under scrutiny,” Chirrut said, as the three of them walked into the kitchen.

“ _I_ can sympathise with that.”

Kay had taken up position at the stove. He always said he only trusted himself in this household to make proper food, but Cassian knew that that was just his favourite excuse to avoid social interaction with strangers. It may have been most of the reason he had learned to cook, in fact. He didn’t make it a point to try and push Kay out there anymore than he wanted to be. When you were old enough, you eventually learned you just had to let people be and the same went for Chirrut’s boyfriend. It was just fun to tease him about it because by now, he got indignant.

“Who else is coming if we’ve got a free spot now?” Jyn asked, picking up a drink.

“Some friends from the Alliance.” That was what they jokingly called their little left-wing political club that was just a bit too radical to actually happen in a university classroom, as a reference to the Alliance to Restore the Republic that had been active during the civil war. Cassian nodded towards the hallway as the doorbell rang. “That’ll be them.”

He’d guessed wrong. Leaning in the door, he only heard one set of footsteps on the concrete floor outside and up the staircase came a tall Asian man with a wild mane of hair who he’d never seen before. Cassian found himself standing a bit straighter. The stranger wasn’t a bodybuilder, but he also didn’t look like you’d necessarily want to catch a punch from him. It wasn’t the best neighbourhood, either, so Cassian would rather be safe than sorry.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Are you Cassian Andor?” the stranger asked. “Baze Malbus.”

Though Cassian had only heard his name a couple of times, it was unique enough to be hard to forget. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Jyn stopping on her way to the living room.

“Chirrut’s boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

When Cassian stepped aside. Baze came in and pulled off his boots and jacket. Meanwhile, Jyn had fetched Chirrut from the kitchen.

“Baze? I thought you didn’t have time?” Chirrut asked, knitting his brow.

“Well, they did have to find out I exist at some point.”

Bodhi, who had joined them with a bottle in hand, gave a nervous laugh.

“He told you about that, huh? It was just a joke.”

“Yes. Chirrut’s mistake. I thought it was funny, so I kept dodging you,” Baze said, grinning. “But I figured I had to meet his friends eventually, so it might as well be tonight.”

People didn’t usually manage to surprise Chirrut, so the absolute bafflement on his face now made it difficult for Cassian not to laugh.

“I see you’re going to fit in here,” Kay announced, leaning out the kitchen door to look at Baze.

All of them filtered into Cassian’s living room. Chirrut elbowed Baze on the way in, but Baze just chuckled. As Chirrut veered slightly off course, his head heading for the edge of an atlas that laid on top of Cassian’s bookcase, Baze reached out automatically, pulling him back to his side. There was almost habit in the movement already and, just like the smile that he gave Chirrut, unseen by his boyfriend, it looked gentle.

Yes, Cassian had to agree with Kay; he seemed to be a pretty good fit on all levels.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: "Modern AU, Everyone assumes Chirrut is lying when he tells them about this hot boyfriend of his who conveniently doesn't have Facebook, and is "still getting his phone service sorted out after moving" and saves baby animals from oil spills or something. They are promptly proven wrong when Baze shows up unexpectedly."


End file.
